Greetings, my prosperous friends.
Every day we're learning a little bit more about how we can go from making the small (or nonexistent) amount of money we are earning now, to making enough money that we can have real wealth. We decided that wealth is simply the freedom to be, do, and have anything that we can dream of, and that money is only an energetic tool that can help to make that happen. And yesterday, we explored the idea that successful people exude self-confidence because they are doing something that they are knowledgeable about and that they do well.
So now, let's look at our answers to yesterday's study question. When you are in the flow, when time stand stills, when you are doing work that you enjoy, what are you doing? The answer to that question is one clue to answering the question, "What can I do that will earn me some real money?"
On Day 27 of the Prosperity Project, we talked about the idea of a Master Mind. People like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie amassed huge fortunes because they didn't rely only on their own limited personal knowledge. Instead, they assembled a team of people, each of whom were experts in their particular field. These people didn't need to know everything about making cars or steel, they only needed to know their own part of it. If everyone on the team does what they do best, then they will be doing work that engages them and for which they have a passion. A team assembled around that level of excellence is bound to be successful. Ford and Carnegie themselves were doing work that they did best: they were excellent at having a vision, seeing the big picture, and organizing and directing the efforts of their team.
Now, I want to digress here for a moment to point out that not everyone is destined to be a master of industry. Not everyone is an entrepreneur, so although it is popular in these times to entertain the idea of starting your own business, that route may not be for you. Remember, that wealth is being free to be, do, and have, whatever you want. Owning your own business may require that you spend long hours doing work that you hate, and being tied to a business that you can't leave or it will fail. That is not freedom.
My brother, for example, is a master craftsmen. He can take old furniture and turn it into a priceless work of art. He can turn fabric into stunning high-end draperies that have been showcased in major national trade magazines. He loves working in his shop; he is the very best at what he does, and he enjoys his work immensely. He is limited in the money that he can earn, however, because his earnings are tied to his personal labor. Granted, he gets top dollar for his work because of the level of excellence that he puts into his pieces, but if he wants to make any real money at it he needs to hire help. He tried that for a short time, but realized that he was spending his time managing his staff instead of working in his shop. Instead of being a master craftsman, he had turned into a manager and hated his job!
The point that I am making here is that our aim is to create the life that will bring us the most pleasure. We want to have a life that is so enjoyable that when we open our eyes in the morning we bound out of bed ready to greet the new day. If we hate our job, that is very unlikely. If we hate our job, it doesn't matter how much money it pays. If, then, we are to be successful, we want to design a life around activities that we enjoy. We want to spend our days doing what we love to do best.
In order to be successful, in order to earn larger wages doing work that we enjoy, we should follow Ford and Carnegie's lead and become a part of a Master Mind team. That could take many forms: we could be the entrepreneur who is the visionary who puts that team together; we could form a partnership with others who are starting up a new enterprise, or we could be happy simply being an employee of a company that pays us to play at what we love all day. We don't have to own a business in order to be considered successful, we simply need to be doing work that makes us happy.
So how, then, do we get there? As the Munchkins told Dorothy, "It is always best to start at the beginning." Start where you are. If you have a job already, even if it is a job that you don't particularly enjoy and that does not pay you much money, begin working that job as if you are an integral part of a Master Mind team. Do your part of the job with enthusiasm, with the idea of advancing the cause of the team. It will be wonderful practice for you, and because you will now be focusing on the positive aspects of the job instead of on the parts that you hate, you will begin attracting more opportunities to be an essential part of a successful team. I guarantee that if you begin working your current job with enthusiasm, you will find that your current job will evolve: you will find yourself spending more time doing work that you love, and less time doing the stuff you hate.
If you do not currently have a job, then you have lots of free time on your hands. Volunteer for something that allows you to use the skills that you identified yesterday as being your favorite thing to do. Don't worry that you're spending your time working for free; you will be adding value to the world by doing work you love, and the Universe will reward you by sending to you more opportunities to do that work for a fee. Remember that the Universe wants to support you.
Today's study question will help you to gain a clearer picture of the kind of work that you are ultimately wanting to attract to yourself:
IF MONEY WERE NO OBJECT, HOW WOULD YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Self Confidence
Welcome back, prosperous friends!
Yesterday we learned that it's not so much what you do, it's how you do it that really matters. We realized that no matter where we want to end up we always have to start right where we are. We spent some time imagining how we would do our current job differently if we were being paid ten times as much to do it. What did you notice when you did that exercise? As you saw yourself going through that well-paid imaginary workday, did you notice that you carried yourself differently? Did you speak with more authority? Did you seem to have more self-confidence?
Self-Confidence is definitely one of the characteristics of doing things in the Certain Way. It is one of the qualities that make up How You Do It. Napoleon Hill talks about the importance of self-confidence in his classic, The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan for Achieving Your Dreams. Here is what he writes:
Here's today's study question:
THINK ABOUT THE DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES THAT YOU ENGAGE IN EVERY DAY, BOTH FOR WORK AND FOR PLAY. WHEN YOU ARE TOTALLY IN THE FLOW, WHEN YOU LOSE TRACK OF TIME, WHEN YOU ARE WORKING CONFIDENTLY AND UNSELF-CONSCIOUSLY, WHEN YOU ARE JOYFUL AND STRONG, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THAT MOMENT?
Yesterday we learned that it's not so much what you do, it's how you do it that really matters. We realized that no matter where we want to end up we always have to start right where we are. We spent some time imagining how we would do our current job differently if we were being paid ten times as much to do it. What did you notice when you did that exercise? As you saw yourself going through that well-paid imaginary workday, did you notice that you carried yourself differently? Did you speak with more authority? Did you seem to have more self-confidence?
Self-Confidence is definitely one of the characteristics of doing things in the Certain Way. It is one of the qualities that make up How You Do It. Napoleon Hill talks about the importance of self-confidence in his classic, The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan for Achieving Your Dreams. Here is what he writes:
Perhaps you have wondered why a few men advance to highly paid positions while others all around them, who have as much training and who seemingly perform as much work, do not get ahead. Select any two people of these two types that you choose, and study them, and the reason why one advances and the other stands still will be quite obvious to you. You will find that the one who advances believes in himself. You will find that he backs this belief with such dynamic, aggressive action that he lets others know that he believes in himself. You will also notice that this Self-confidence is contagious; it is impelling; it is persuasive; it attracts others.
You will also find that the one who does not advance shows clearly, by the look on his face, by the posture of his body, by the lack of briskness in his step, by the uncertainty with which he speaks, that he lacks Self-confidence. No one is going to pay much attention to the person who has no confidence in himself.
He does not attract others because his mind is a negative force that repels rather than attracts.That all seems pretty clear, and when we encounter a person who is completely self-confident or completely self-conscious, we recognize it instantly and respond to them accordingly. But people are complex creatures. We are hardly ever completely anything. If you're like me, even if we are sometimes insecure and self-conscious in some situations, we also have certain areas in our lives where we are very confident. When we are engaged in a particular activity that we do well and we enjoy, we move confidently. We are enthusiastic and totally in the flow. Work that we do in that state takes on a certain quality of excellence.
Here's today's study question:
THINK ABOUT THE DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES THAT YOU ENGAGE IN EVERY DAY, BOTH FOR WORK AND FOR PLAY. WHEN YOU ARE TOTALLY IN THE FLOW, WHEN YOU LOSE TRACK OF TIME, WHEN YOU ARE WORKING CONFIDENTLY AND UNSELF-CONSCIOUSLY, WHEN YOU ARE JOYFUL AND STRONG, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THAT MOMENT?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Prosperity Project, Phase 2: It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It
Greetings, prosperous friends! Yesterday we gave some thought as to what wealth is, and we found that we are already abundantly wealthy right where we are. We remembered that if we focus on the wealth that we already have in our lives, even more wealth can be attracted to us. We learned that the secret is to look upon all that we already have with an attitude of grateful appreciation, seeing it all as very good.
Start Where You Are
In Phase 1 of the Prosperity Project we had dreams of homes and vacations, gifts to friends, charitable foundations ... all things that require big money. How, then, do we get from where we are now to where we want to be? The answer has always been to Start Where You Are. Buddhists have been teaching us that for centuries. The Tao Te Ching teaches that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Since all we ever really have is the Right Here And Now, we have no choice but to change our lives in this present moment by changing ourselves. Since in the present moment we have whatever job we have (or don't have), then instead of trying to change WHAT we do we should focus on changing HOW we do things.
The Certain Way
In The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles tells us that in order to earn more money we must do all that we do in what he calls a Certain Way. In an earlier post, we learned that when we do things in the Certain Way we make it a point, in every transaction, to give people more in use value than they give you in money. We learned to always give way more than we are paid to give. We also learned to be larger than our current position, by never leaving undone anything that can reasonably be done by us. Not to say that we should overwork, but we should always do all of today's work today. Tomorrow's work will take care of itself.
Do Today's Work Today
Wattles is very clear on why we should never leave work undone, and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense: When we set our intention, when we have a Clear Mental Image of what it is that we want to create in our lives and we intend to make that a reality for ourselves, the universe starts setting things up so that our dreams can materialize. That requires an incredible amount of orchestration, because other people will need to be inspired to do their part, which in turn will cause even more people to do their part, which will eventually cause a synchronistic opportunity to present itself to us, which will be the break we need to materialize our dreams. If, however, we fail to do that one all-important thing because we're too busy watching General Hospital; if we decide to wait until tomorrow, or the weekend, or next week to get around to it, then it throws off that divine timing. By doing the thing we were inspired to do that very same day we get the inspiration, we are honoring the Universe's time schedule. If we fail to do that one thing, then the Universe's beautifully orchestrated miracle of timing is thwarted, and things must be set up all over again. What could have happened quickly for us, now must take quite a bit more time ... all because we got in our own way by procrastinating!
It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It
Many of us here on the Prosperity Project have been wondering what THING we can do that will earn us large sums of money. We are looking at our present jobs realizing that no matter how hard we work, we will never make a lot of money there. Napoleon Hill tells the story of a man who worked outside his office window selling peanuts on a street corner. That man worked hard every day; he was always busy. When he wasn't selling peanuts he was cooking peanuts and doing all the busywork involved with selling food. But in spite of how hard he worked all day, he still only earned pennies. Many of us are like that peanut seller: We are busy all day, working hard with little time for ourselves, to earn just a few pennies a day. Many of us work hard all week and barely make ends meet. People who make gobs of money work no harder than we do, they just work a bit differently.
The secret to earning more money is to remember that what we do is not nearly as important as how we do it. Whatever our work may currently be, we should do it with enthusiasm. We should do more than is expected of us, and always do all of today's work today. Yes, in order to make more money we will eventually need to do more lucrative work. But here and now, today, we don't need to decide what that work should be. We don't need to make plans to quit our jobs and start some get-rich-quick scheme. We need not make any heroic efforts at changing our circumstances. What we do need to change is how we go about doing the things that are already ours to do. We need to BE the kind of people who deserve to be paid the kind of money we would like to be earning. Someone once gave me some excellent advice: If we think we should be earning $100 an hour, then we should do the job currently set before us as if we were being paid $100 an hour to do it.
Here's today's study question: PRETEND YOU ARE A CONSULTANT BEING PAID HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO WORK IN YOUR COMPANY AND IMPROVE THINGS FROM THE INSIDE. HOW WOULD YOU WORK DIFFERENTLY IF YOU WERE BEING PAID TEN TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU CURRENTLY EARN?
Start Where You Are
In Phase 1 of the Prosperity Project we had dreams of homes and vacations, gifts to friends, charitable foundations ... all things that require big money. How, then, do we get from where we are now to where we want to be? The answer has always been to Start Where You Are. Buddhists have been teaching us that for centuries. The Tao Te Ching teaches that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Since all we ever really have is the Right Here And Now, we have no choice but to change our lives in this present moment by changing ourselves. Since in the present moment we have whatever job we have (or don't have), then instead of trying to change WHAT we do we should focus on changing HOW we do things.
The Certain Way
In The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles tells us that in order to earn more money we must do all that we do in what he calls a Certain Way. In an earlier post, we learned that when we do things in the Certain Way we make it a point, in every transaction, to give people more in use value than they give you in money. We learned to always give way more than we are paid to give. We also learned to be larger than our current position, by never leaving undone anything that can reasonably be done by us. Not to say that we should overwork, but we should always do all of today's work today. Tomorrow's work will take care of itself.
Do Today's Work Today
Wattles is very clear on why we should never leave work undone, and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense: When we set our intention, when we have a Clear Mental Image of what it is that we want to create in our lives and we intend to make that a reality for ourselves, the universe starts setting things up so that our dreams can materialize. That requires an incredible amount of orchestration, because other people will need to be inspired to do their part, which in turn will cause even more people to do their part, which will eventually cause a synchronistic opportunity to present itself to us, which will be the break we need to materialize our dreams. If, however, we fail to do that one all-important thing because we're too busy watching General Hospital; if we decide to wait until tomorrow, or the weekend, or next week to get around to it, then it throws off that divine timing. By doing the thing we were inspired to do that very same day we get the inspiration, we are honoring the Universe's time schedule. If we fail to do that one thing, then the Universe's beautifully orchestrated miracle of timing is thwarted, and things must be set up all over again. What could have happened quickly for us, now must take quite a bit more time ... all because we got in our own way by procrastinating!
It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It
Many of us here on the Prosperity Project have been wondering what THING we can do that will earn us large sums of money. We are looking at our present jobs realizing that no matter how hard we work, we will never make a lot of money there. Napoleon Hill tells the story of a man who worked outside his office window selling peanuts on a street corner. That man worked hard every day; he was always busy. When he wasn't selling peanuts he was cooking peanuts and doing all the busywork involved with selling food. But in spite of how hard he worked all day, he still only earned pennies. Many of us are like that peanut seller: We are busy all day, working hard with little time for ourselves, to earn just a few pennies a day. Many of us work hard all week and barely make ends meet. People who make gobs of money work no harder than we do, they just work a bit differently.
The secret to earning more money is to remember that what we do is not nearly as important as how we do it. Whatever our work may currently be, we should do it with enthusiasm. We should do more than is expected of us, and always do all of today's work today. Yes, in order to make more money we will eventually need to do more lucrative work. But here and now, today, we don't need to decide what that work should be. We don't need to make plans to quit our jobs and start some get-rich-quick scheme. We need not make any heroic efforts at changing our circumstances. What we do need to change is how we go about doing the things that are already ours to do. We need to BE the kind of people who deserve to be paid the kind of money we would like to be earning. Someone once gave me some excellent advice: If we think we should be earning $100 an hour, then we should do the job currently set before us as if we were being paid $100 an hour to do it.
Here's today's study question: PRETEND YOU ARE A CONSULTANT BEING PAID HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO WORK IN YOUR COMPANY AND IMPROVE THINGS FROM THE INSIDE. HOW WOULD YOU WORK DIFFERENTLY IF YOU WERE BEING PAID TEN TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU CURRENTLY EARN?
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